SQL Managed Instance Replication Snapshot using Azure File but NOT Access Key

Question

We are trying to setup replication between 2 SQL MIs and referring to the follow document:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/managed-instance/replication-between-two-instances-configure-tutorial?view=azuresql

However, the Storage Account Access Key of our company expires in a very short period of time. Are there any other options for configuring the replication snapshot to Azure File say using Managed Service Identity or AD User/Group?

Answer 1

Hi
Matthew Wong •,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum and thanks for using Azure Services.

As I understand, you want to create SQL Managed Instance Replication Snapshot.

Microsoft recommends using Azure Key Vault to manage and rotate your access keys. Your application can securely access your keys in Key Vault, so that you can avoid storing them with your application code. For more information about using Key Vault for key management, see the following articles:

• Manage storage account keys with Azure Key Vault and PowerShell
• Manage storage account keys with Azure Key Vault and the Azure CLI

Refer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-account-keys-manage?tabs=azure-portal for more details.

Also, Transactional Replication is a powerful, versatile, and flexible technology that you can use to replicate a set of data from source to destination database. Source database can be hosted on SQL Server or Azure SQL Managed Instance, while destination can be on SQL Server, Azure SQL Managed Instance or Azure SQL Database.

Refer: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-sql-blog/transactional-replication-ga-for-azure-sql-managed-instance/ba-p/3676818

Also, we encourage you to share your feedback over Azure SQL Database Feedback channel where concerned team would look into the feature and would work depending on the importance and up-votes.

Let us know if this helps.

If not, we will continue to engage in order to understand more on the requirement, thanks.